by Al MartinGlobal Central Banks Go All In
(7-17-13) Now that Mark Carney, the former Bank of Canada governor and now the Bank of England governor who took over from former Bank of England governor Mervyn King, and who will be meeting with ECB chief Mario Draghi and the other Euro Central Bank governors in the coming weeks appears to me to be a precursor to a final round of monetary stimulus, “all in” as it were, by the global central banks in a desperate bid to stave off growing deflationary pressures which were not dealt with and were being generated from the collapse of the previous speculative bubble.
It also appears that the recent uptick in real estate, not only in the United States but globally, is now coming to an end. Despite the prosetelizations of the shills on CNBC this will be just another false start as it were in real estate such as we have seen consistently since 2009. This is “final” in that they are down to the bottom drawer of their proverbial “tool chest.”
Despite what Ben Bernanke likes to say, which is that we still have plenty of tools left in the monetary tool chest, that is not true. Central banks are down to their final tools. In other words, in Europe for example, they can have only one, last, final, and coordinated shot in rate reduction which is where Carney at the Bank of England and Mario Draghi at the ECB are going. Both the ECB and the BoE are going to lower their benchmark rates from ½ to ¼ percent. They have to coordinate that with all of the non-EU member countries so they coordinate reductions in their interest rates in order to get as much so-called “shock value” into the markets as possible because of the signal that sends.
“Shock value” is when central banks are able to act in a coordinated fashion which sends a bullish signal to equity markets that says they are on top of the problem as it were. That’s why central banks will always try to act in coordination, but seldom can do so for political considerations. Since Europe is always the tripwire, the final round or the “all in” play, as it were, has to come out of Europe first, and Europe still has the room to cut rates further, while the United States and Japan do not because they haven’t cut as much ass the United States or japan.
To the Unwashed that sounds wonderful and that’s the way it will get spun by the financial shills, but the fact that they are moving all in means that they have used up the rest of the tools in the toolbox.
What the central banks are attempting to accomplish is to generate so-called real economic growth, not the economic growth that has been generated based on the back of monetary stimulus. Real economic growth has not yet happened. It can be done by instilling enough confidence in the markets that the central banks are on top of the situation.
The banks are prepared to go “all in” to provide the one last shot of monetary stimulus supposedly necessary – and that’s the way it gets spun to the Unwashed – in order to spark genuine economic growth. And in order to spark that, you need an increase in consumer confidence numbers – which we are already seeing in the United States and in Europe. The problem is that this isn’t translating into increased consumption.
Everyone claims to be more confident. You can see that in economic confidence numbers globally. However it still comes down to the same problem – the availability of credit. In other words you can have high consumer confidence numbers but this doesn’t translate into the availability of credit. That is still the problem in the United States and it is still the problem, in Europe and Japan.
The problem is twofold. First global governments are politically hamstrung and they can not offer any coherent fiscal policy and they can not offer any coordinated fiscal stimulus which has to come from governments. Fiscal stimulus means reduction in tax levy. Another problem is that governments are still shell-shocked by the events that occurred in 2008 and 2009 when the planet was teetering on the brink. Also governments are still putting the arm on banks not to lend…
And why are governments politically hamstrung? Because of global election cycles. Between now and the next six months all of the G20 nation-states except for the United States have elections. And there’s certainly going to be turnover in government. Seated regimes never like to proffer any useful policy prior to an election. They want to see if they’re re-elected before they stick their necks out.
The politicians are frightened – since they’re not economists – and this is one of the greatest flaws in the global economic system that you still have politicians who have supervisory capacities over economists -- of adopting a more easy lending policy more accommodative tax policy in order to rejuvenate growth because global capital bank ratios, despite the claims of the shills, are the highest they’ve been in years.
So how do we know things are unwinding? How do we know the end is getting closer? Because governments are not acting the way they normally would act in order to rejuvenate economic growth. Why? Because no one has to anymore. Because there has been so much wealth concentration. Bushonomics has been successful.
Now in the United States the top 1% control 75% of the private wealth and the fractions are approaching similar numbers in all the G-20 nation-states. Those who control politically have no vested interest to continue to maintain the system because it’s not viable. Their only interest now becomes maintaining control. That’s the difference -- maintaining control when there are riots in the streets during an economic meltdown.
What if the military and the police join the protesters? If that happens, then there’s a problem – but that usually doesn’t happen because the military and the police are always taken care of and that’s not going to change because governments have to rely on the military to maintain control. Even in the Obama Regime, liberal Democrats have not pointed it out because they’re frightened to do so. Everybody’s frightened of the truth.
But now even the Obama Regime has increased domestic defense security programs – which is very unusual for a left-wing regime to do. And yet all of the regimes in Europe -- almost all the G-20 nation-states controlled by left-wing governments -- continue to attempt to reduce their greater defense budgets, mostly on large procurement expenditure. However they are actually increasing domestic security expenditure.
People don’t even understand what that means. Nancy Pelosi and Dianne Feinstein understand – but they’re all frightened to talk about it. Left-wing regimes have the same excuse that the previous right-wing regimes they’re replacing had – raising the specter of domestic terrorism.
This is done to justify the increased internal defense expenditures which are really defense expenditures on warm bodies, weapon systems and coordination to maintain internal control and to ensure that the military could quickly assume control over the distribution of food, water, and power. That’s what it’s all about. And that’s what the Obama Regime has done quite successfully.
For example, FEMA was left with very little to do yet its appropriations never declined. That’s why FEMA got reassigned to all these other internal agencies because they had assets and had nothing to do with them. And nobody wanted to cut their budget because every time left-wing Democrats tried to cut their budget, the Republicans hammer them on the infamous T-Word -- Terrorism – the word that built the House of Bush. No other word consolidates power like the T-Word.
What has happened is that the Snowden Affair has revealed an awful lot about the Obama Regime -- the fact that the liberal Democrats did not come to Snowden’s defense and they even supported his indictment. They get their marching orders rorm the White House and the White House said no matter how you are predisposed to want to support whistleblowers – you can’t do it anymore because it conflicts with the internal agenda.
The Snowden Affair has given fodder to those on the Democratic left. In other words, why hasn’t Obama fulfilled his promise to undo the Patriot Act?
In fact Obama has actually used them to strengthen internal security. So the Obama Regime may not be as naïve as people think. We have made the claim in previous articles before that Obama didn’t understand his place in history. He came after a Bushonian Regime and Democratic regimes that follow Bushonian Regimes have to understand their place in history. They have to act with great fiscal discipline in order to kick the can – the debt time bomb can -- down the road some more. Obama originally didn’t do this by proffering a lot of new social spending but if you notice none of the social spending was actually voted on.
So those concerned about civil rights or the expansion of the Patriot Act and more centralized power should not be looking to left-wing Democrats -- to whom they have traditionally looked -- to help them.
It’s mind-boggling how things have changed. Maybe the Obama Regime finally understood how long they could stretch out the collapse date and that their concern became to ensure internal control.
At the bureaucratic level, government generally tends to act pursuant to its mandate. In other words, even if the plan is wrong and what they are doing is wrong. If you tell an agency like FEMA or the Office of Emergency Management, whose powers have been greatly increased since it would be them who would control food, water, power etc. in a meltdown, they would do what they’ve been told to do and what the game plan is – thinking that it is the right thing to do. Whether it’s the right thing to do or not. But in fact it will be the right thing to do – because it’s the only way that internal control can be maintained, and now the Obama Regime is putting the pieces in place.
Meanwhile the Snowden Affair revealed where the Obama Regime and the Democratic left really are – just an extension of Bushonian Cabalism…

* AL MARTIN is an independent economic-political analyst with 25 years of experience as a trader on NYMEX, CME, CBOT and CFTC. As a former contributor to the Presidential Council of Economic Advisors, Al Martin is considered to be a source of independent analysis for financially sophisticated and market savvy investors.

After working as a broker on Wall Street, Al Martin was involved in the so-called "Iran Contra" Affair as a fundraiser for the Bush Cabal from the covert side of government aka the US Shadow Government.

His memoir, "The Conspirators: Secrets of an Iran Contra Insider," (http://www.almartinraw.com) provides an unprecedented look at the frauds of the Bush Cabal during the Iran Contra era. His weekly column, "Behind the Scenes in the Beltway," is published weekly on Al Martin Raw.com, which also publishes a bimonthly newsletter called "Whistleblower Gazette."

Al Martin's new website "Insider Intelligence" (http://www.insiderintelligence.com) will provide a long term macro-view of world markets and how they are affected by backroom realpolitik.